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Introduction
Meaning of Cloud Computing
Types of Cloud Computing
Cloud architectures
Benefits of Cloud Computing
Challenges of Cloud Computing
Future Impacts in Cloud Computing

Introduction
Modern computing in the age of the Internet is quite a strange, remarkable thing. As you sit
connected to your laptop at home watching a YouTube video or using a search engine, youre
actually plugging into the collective power of thousands of computers that serve all this
information to you from far-away rooms distributed around the world. Its almost like having a
massive supercomputer at your service, thanks to the Internet.
This phenomenon is what we typically refer to as cloud computing. We now read the news, listen
to music, shop, watch TV shows and store our files on the web. Some of us live in cities in which
nearly every museum, bank, and government office has a website. The end result is, we spend
less time in lines or on the phone, as these websites allow us to do things like pay bills and make
reservations. The movement of many of our daily tasks online enables us to live more fully in the
real world.
Meaning of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a type of computing that relies on sharing computing resources rather than
having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. It is a type of Internet-based
computing, where different services -- such as servers, storage and applications -- are delivered
to an organization's computers and devices through the Internet.
The cloud in cloud computing can be defined as the set of hardware, networks, storage,
services, and interfaces that combine to deliver aspects of computing as a service. Cloud services
include the delivery of software, infrastructure, and storage over the Internet (either as separate
components or a complete platform) based on user demand.

Cloud computing is the next stage in the Internet's evolution, providing the means through which
everything from computing power to computing infrastructure, applications, business
processes to personal collaboration can be delivered to you as a service wherever and
whenever you need.
The goal of cloud computing is to apply traditional supercomputing, or high-performance
computing power, normally used by military and research facilities, to perform tens of trillions of
computations per second, in consumer-oriented applications such as financial portfolios, to
deliver personalized information, to provide data storage or to power large, immersive computer
games.
A cloud allows users to access application, information, and data of all sorts on an online level
rather than by use of actual hardware or devices. A company offering reliable cloud technology
allows for computing to be done in a much more shared way, as a cloud provides a service rather
than a product. Users get and share their information in a way that can allow them to access and
give access to the whole world or any groups of people within their cloud.
The standards for connecting the computer systems and the software needed to make cloud
computing work are not fully defined at present time, leaving many companies to define their
own cloud computing technologies. Cloud computing systems offered by companies, like IBM's
"Blue Cloud" technologies for example, are based on open standards and open source software,
which links together computers that are used to deliver Web 2.0 capabilities.
For a small and medium size business (SMB), the benefits of cloud computing is currently
driving adoption. In the SMB sector there is often a lack of time and financial resources to
purchase, deploy and maintain an infrastructure (e.g. the software, server and storage).

In cloud computing, small businesses can access these resources and expand or shrink services as
business needs change. The common pay-as-you-go subscription model is designed to let SMBs
easily add or remove services and you typically will only pay for what you do use.

The cloud also focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of the shared resources. Cloud resources
are usually not only shared by multiple users but as dynamically re-allocated per demand. This
can work for allocating resources to users in different time zones. For example, a cloud computer
facility, which serves European users during European business hours with a specific application
(e.g. email) while the same resources are getting reallocated and serve North American users
during North America's business hours with another application (e.g. web server). This approach
should maximize the use of computing powers thus reducing environmental damage as well.
Since less power, air conditioning, rackspace, and so on, is required for the same functions.

The term "moving to cloud" also refers to an organization moving away from a traditional
CAPEX model (buy the dedicated hardware and depreciate it over a period of time) to the OPEX
model (use a shared cloud infrastructure and pay as you use it).

Cloud computing allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure costs, and focus on projects
that differentiate their businesses instead of infrastructure. Proponents also claim that cloud
computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved
manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly, adjust resources to meet
fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.
Actually Cloud Computing is a concept of eliminating traditional business applications which
have always been very complicated and expensive. It allows you to remotely manage work with
a single code-base customized to the companys needs. Cloud applications also differ in that the

cloud provider, not the customer, is responsible for the maintenance, operations, and bandwidth
of the software.
In a cloud computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer
have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers
that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user's side
decrease. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing
system's interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network
takes care of the rest.
Cloud computing has four essential characteristics: elasticity and the ability to scale up and
down, self-service provisioning and automatic deprovisioning, (the release of cloud services that
are no longer needed) application programming interfaces (APIs), billing and metering of service
usage in a pay-as-you-go model.
In other words, cloud computing leverages the Internet to enable the sharing and delivery of data,
media, content, and applications. Example: Music services that store users music collections,
enabling users to stream music on a variety device in any location with Internet connectivity.
Online backup services, that archives the contents of users computers via the Internet to provide
secure restoration of content if a device is damaged or stolen.
Types of Cloud Computing :
Cloud computing is offered in different forms:

Public clouds

Private clouds

Hybrid clouds, which combine both public and private

Public clouds are virtualized data centers outside of your companys firewall. Generally, a
service provider makes resources available to companies, on demand, over the public Internet.
Private clouds are virtualized cloud data centers inside your companys firewall. It may also be
a private space dedicated to your company within a cloud providers data center.
Hybrid clouds combine aspects of both public and private clouds.
Cloud computing is a model of outsourced Information Technology resources where, rather than
building out a unique IT infrastructure, an organization instead accesses a shared infrastructure
that is housed in a separate geographical location.
Cloud architectures
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the foundation of cloud services. It provides clients with
access to server, hardware, storage, bandwidth and other fundamental computing resources. For
example, Amazon EC2 allows individuals and businesses to rent machines preconfigured with
selected operating systems on which to run their own applications.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) built upon IaaS and provides clients with access to the basic
operating software and optional services to develop and use software applications (eg database
access and payment service) without the need to buy and manage the underlying computing
infrastructure. For example, Google App Engine allows clients to run their web applications (ie
software that can be accessed using a web browser such as Internet Explorer over the internet) on
Googles infrastructure.

Software as a Service (SaaS), built upon the underlying IaaS and PaaS provides clients with
integrated access to software applications. For example, Oracle SaaS Platform allows
independent software vendors to build, deploy and manage SaaS and cloud-based applications
using a licensing economic model. Here, users purchase a license and support for components of
the Oracle SaaS Platform on a monthly basis.

Benefits of Cloud Computing:

1. Lower Capital Costs
This is the first and the most considered aspect of the Cloud Computing. The Cloud
decimates the need for each user to invest in stand-alone servers or software that is
capital intensive, but under-utilized most of the time. You can maintain easy access to
your information with minimal upfront spending. Pay as you go (weekly, quarterly or
yearly), based on demand.
2. Increased Flexibility in Operations
It allows companies or large enterprises to save time in buying and setting up the
hardware. Even users can quickly scale up or down usage requirements or companies can
respond quickly to any business changes that may arise unexpectedly.
3. Compatibility
Well this is a big debate question whether to use Windows, Linux or Mac on old
traditional application. While are you on Cloud Computing than you can work on any
popular platform.

4. Improve accessibility
You have access anytime, anywhere, making your life so much easier. You only need is
an internet connected device as most of the companies provide apps or softwares for
popular platforms like Windows, Mac, Android, iOS etc to work from anywhere.
5. No Software Glitches
Almost, every Cloud Storage company gives vast compatibility with Cloud applications.
So theres no more glitches for software installation.
6. Backup and Recovery
On any Cloud network almost, everyone have this option to automatically backup the
whole data. To reinstate backup if you damaged your data you only need to click some
buttons means lot of time is saving which you can use to do some other work. It is one of
the most asked benefits of Cloud Computing users are asking while buying storage.
Challenges in Cloud Computing:
Specific issues relate to deploying future infrastructure-as-a-service clouds and include
efficiently managing such clouds to deliver scalable and elastic service platforms on demand,
developing cloud aggregation architectures and technologies that let cloud providers collaborate
and interoperate, improving cloud infrastructures' security, reliability, and energy efficiency.
Companies are increasingly aware of the business value that cloud computing brings and are
taking steps towards transition to the cloud. A smooth transition entails a thorough understanding
of the benefits as well as challenges involved. Like any new technology, the adoption of cloud
computing is not free from issues. Some of the most important challenges are as follows.

1. Data location - Cloud computing technology allows cloud servers to reside anywhere,
thus the enterprise may not know the physical location of the server used to store and
process their data and applications. Although from the technology point of view, location
is least relevant, this has become a critical issue for data governance requirements. It is
essential to understand that many Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) can also specifically
define where data is to be located.

2. Common data Access - Application sharing and multi-tenancy of data is one of the
characteristics associated with cloud computing. Although many CSPs have multi-tenant
applications that are secure, scalable and customizable, security and privacy issues are
still often concerns among enterprises. Data encryption is another control that can assist
data confidentiality.

3. Cloud security policy / procedures transparency - The main challenge to cloud

computing is how it addresses the security and privacy concerns of businesses thinking of
adopting it. The fact that the valuable enterprise data will reside outside the corporate
firewall raises serious concerns. Hacking and various attacks to cloud infrastructure
would affect multiple clients even if only one site is attacked. Some CSPs may have less
transparency than others about their information security policy. The rationalisation for
such difference is that policies may be proprietary. As a result, it may create conflict
with the enterprises information compliance requirement. The enterprise needs to have

detailed understanding of the service level agreements (SLAs) that stipulated the desired
level of security provided by the CSPs. These risks can be mitigated by using security
applications, encrypted file systems, data loss software, and buying security hardware to
track unusual behavior across servers.

4. Cloud date ownership - In the contract agreements it may state that the CP owns the
data stored in the cloud computing environment. The CSP may demand for significant
service fees for data to be returned to the enterprise when the cloud computing SLAs
terminates.

5. Lock-in with CSPs proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) Currently many CSPs implement their application by adopting the proprietary APIs. As a
result, cloud services transition from one CSP to another CSP, has become extremely
complicated, time-consuming and labour-intensive.

6. Compliance requirements - Todays cloud computing services, can challenge various

compliance audit requirements currently in place,

Data location, cloud computing

security policy transparency etc, are all challenging issues in compliance auditing efforts.
Examples of the compliance requirement including privacy and PII laws, Payment Card
Industry (PCI) requirements and financial reporting laws.

7. Disaster recovery - It is a concern of enterprises about the quick recovery from disaster,
since data may be commingled and scattered around multiple servers and geographical
areas. It may be possible that the data for a specific point of time cannot be identified.
Unlike traditional hosting, the enterprise knows exactly where the location is of their
data, to be rapidly retrieved in the event of disaster recovery. In the cloud computing
model, the primary CSP may outsource capabilities to third parties, who may also
outsource the recovery process. This will become more complex when the primary CSP
does not ultimately hold the data.

8. Ensuring adequate performance - The inherent limitations of the Internet apply to

cloud computing. These performance limitations can take the form of delays caused by
demand and traffic spikes, slowdowns caused by malicious traffic/attacks, and last mile
performance issues, among others. Businesses can save money on hardware but they have
to spend more for the bandwidth. This can be a low cost for smaller applications but can
be significantly high for the data-intensive applications. Delivering intensive and
complex data over the network requires sufficient bandwidth. Because of this, many
businesses are waiting for a reduced cost before switching to the cloud.

9. Service Delivery and Billing - It is difficult to assess the costs involved due to the ondemand nature of the services. Budgeting and assessment of the cost will be very difficult
unless the provider has some good and comparable benchmarks to offer. The servicelevel agreements (SLAs) of the provider are not adequate to guarantee the availability

and scalability. Businesses will be reluctant to switch to cloud without a strong service
quality guarantee.

10. Interoperability and Portability - Businesses should have the leverage of migrating in
and out of the cloud and switching providers whenever they want, and there should be no
lock-in period. Cloud computing services should have the capability to integrate
smoothly with the on-premise IT.

11. Reliability and Availability - Cloud providers still lack round-the-clock service, this
results in frequent outages. It is important to monitor the service being provided using
internal or third-party tools. It is vital to have plans to supervise usage, SLAs,
performance, robustness, and business dependency of these services.
All these challenges should not be considered as road blocks in the pursuit of cloud computing. It
is rather important to give serious consideration to these issues and the possible ways out before
adopting the technology.

Future of Cloud Computing:

1. Software floats away from hardware
Software will become divorced from hardware, with more and more technologies
consumed as a service, Cloud computing is the final means by which computing becomes
invisible. As a result, by 2020, if you were to ask a CIO to draw a map of their
infrastructure, they would not be able to. He will be able to say 'here are my partner

providers', but he will not be able to draw a diagram of his infrastructure. This will be
because it will be in a "highly abstracted space", where software is written in such a way
that it goes through several filters before it interacts with hardware. This means that
front-end applications, or applications built on top of a platform-as-a-service, will be
hardware agnostic.

2. Modular software
To take advantage of the huge hardware available via clouds, individual software
applications are set to get larger and more complex as they are written to take advantage
of scale. With the growth in the size and complexity of individual programs, the software
development process will place an emphasis on modular software as in, large
applications with components that can be modified without shutting down the program.
As a consequence, cloud applications will require a new programming mindset,
especially as they interact with multiple clouds.
Software has to be thought about differently. The management of federated services will
be one of the main 2020 challenges. This is because applications are not only going to be
based in the cloud, but will hook into other clouds and various on-premise applications as
well.
In other words, different parts of applications will "float around" in and out of service
providers. Assuring good service-level agreements for these complex software packages
will be a challenge.

3. Social software
Along with the modular shift, software could take on traits currently found in socialmedia applications like Facebook. Programs could form automatic, if fleeting,
associations with bits of hardware and software according to their needs.
It will be a social-media evolution. In other words, the infrastructure and software of a
datacenter will mould itself around the task required, rather than the other way around.
Developers will no longer need to worry about provisioning storage, a server and a
switch, all of this will happen automatically.

4. Commodity hardware rules

By 2020 the transition to low-cost hardware will be in full swing as schemes such as the
Open Compute Project find their way out of the datacenters of Facebook and Amazon
Web Services and into facilities operated by other, smaller companies as well. Servers
and storage devices will look like replaceable sleds. Cloud computing is the final means
by which computing becomes invisible. By breaking infrastructure down into its basic
components, replacements and upgrades can be done quickly. The companies best placed
to use this form of commoditized infrastructure are large businesses that operate huge
datacenters.

5. Low-power processors and cheaper clouds

The chips are coming to market with a 64-bit capability, and once that happens, uptake
should accelerate, as enterprise software will be developed for the RISC chips, allowing
companies to use the power-thrifty processors in their datacenters, and thereby cut their
electricity bills by an order of magnitude. By 2020 it's likely that low-power chips will be
everywhere.

6. Faster interconnects
By 2020 we can expect communications in the datacenter to be "running at a speed in the
low hundreds of gigabits per second". There will be a "very rapid commodification" of
high-end interconnect technologies, leading to a very cheap, very high-performance
interconnect. This will let information be passed around datacenters at a greater rate than
before, and at a lower cost, letting companies create larger applications that circulate
more data through their hardware (known in the industry as 'chatty' apps), potentially
allowing developers to build more intelligent, automated and complex programs.

7. Datacenters become ecosystems

Cloud datacenters will become much like a breathing and living organism with different
states. The twinned technologies of abstracted software and commodified hardware
should combine to make datacenters function much more like ecosystems, with overarching system ruling equipment via software, with hardware controlled from a single
point, but growing and shrinking according to workloads.

8. Clouds consolidate

The internet rewards scale, and with the huge capital costs associated with running
clouds, it seems likely that there will be a degree of consolidation in the cloud provider
market. Fierce competition between a few large providers could be a good thing, as it
would still drive each of them to experiment with radical technologies. For example, in a
bid to cut its internal networking costs and boost utilization, Google has recently moved
its entire internal network to the software-defined networking Open Flow standard, which
looks set to shake up the industry as more people adopt it.

9. The generational shift

By 2020, a new generation of CIOs will have come into companies, and they will have been
raised in a cloudy as-a-service world. There will be an expectation that things are available
"as-a-service", The consumption model is changing as a generational issue. And this new
generation may lead to a shake-up in how businesses bill themselves for IT,

10. Clouds will stratify

Today clouds are differentiated by whether they provide infrastructure-as-a-service,

platform-as-a-service or software-as-a-service capabilities, but by 2020 more specialized
clouds will have emerged. Middle virtualization tools and 'dynamic BPO services' to appear
by 2020, along with a host of other inelegant acronyms. In other words, along with some
large providers offering basic technologies like storage and compute, there will also be a
broad ecosystem of more specific cloud providers, allowing companies to shift workloads to
the cloud that would otherwise be dealt with by very specific (and typically very expensive)
on-premise applications.

Companies utilizing Cloud service

The following list shows the current top 10 areas in which the companies are using the cloud
services.
1. Development and Testing
2. Development Platform Servers
3. Training Servers
4. One-time Big Data Projects
5. Website
6. Customer Relationship Management
7. Project Management, Expense Reporting & Time Management
8. Email
9. Human Resources
10. Cloud-Based Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus Services

What the Future of Cloud Computing Holds

With cloud computing and the technology behind it there are many potential opportunities and
capabilities. Cloud computing can open a whole new world of jobs, services, platforms,
applications, and much more. There are thousands of possibilities beginning to form as the future
of cloud computing starts to really take off. For instance, vendors and service providers can get
on board to develop new and different ways of selling their goods and services to the cloud users
through the cloud technology. It opens up a whole new platform for designers and web
developers. Businesses and organizations can organize themselves and conduct business much
more affordable and professionally. For one thing, the extreme agility and accessibility of a
cloud is far superior to the use of current technology. No matter where in the world someone
happens to be, or what device they are using, they can access their cloud and continue to do their
work or share their information. There are many visions for the future of computing, and by-andlarge they all involve some form of distributed storage and processing. Sure, our computers,
tablets, and smartphones will continue to evolve and become more powerful, but so too will
cloud services and the internet infrastructure that connects it all.
The following new services have come about 1. Security as a Service: Many security applications have been moved into the cloud, with
the latest being security suites. Some notable vendors are offering hosted security
solutions for desktops and servers -- the desktop solutions work with a host system to
deliver anti-malware, firewall, antiphishing and several other security capabilities -- fully
integrated with the desktop. The advantages offered by hosted security include up-to-date

protection -- no signature updates needed -- deep packet inspection taking place at the
host and comprehensive reporting.

2. Elastic Clouds: Companies such as Amazon are now offering services where virtual
servers can be rented to run customer applications. The idea is that a customer can
instantly scale as needed, have complete control over a virtual instance of a server OS
and pay based upon demand. At the same time, a method like Amazon's EC2 is a way for
customers to leverage cloud computing. That service can also be used by solution
providers to build out virtual data centers, which then can be provisioned to create cloud
services to customers. In other words, services such as EC2 can be used to create an
instant cloud-related business.

3. Virtual Desktop Infrastructures: Many businesses are looking to desktop virtualization

as a method to centralize and control PC desktops. A VDI works by delivering a virtual
PC down to a client device or end point. Users then have full access to that virtual PC
either as a remote client or using synchronization technology. VDI is poised to become a
cloud computing service, where custom virtual PCs can be created and then delivered
down to an endpoint. Customers pay for access to that virtual PC, which is also
constantly backed up and part of a business continuity solution.
Those are just a few examples of emerging technologies that are delivered via the
cloud and that could prove to be very channel friendly if managed and delivered properly.
Solution providers may want to explore those technologies and others to find a ground
floor opportunity that they can transform into a new business opportunity.

Note for reference

Open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for
use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, i.e., open. Open source code is
typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and
share the changes within the community.
Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is
focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically
refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more
organized and is based on serving Web applications to users
Conclusion
Businesses are under increasing pressure to sharpen their business practices. Too few people are
aware of the security threats that are emerging. Nevertheless, they are responsible for ensuring
that sensitive data will remain authentic, accurate, available, and will satisfy specific compliance
requirements. Thus, it is essential for an organization to understand their current IT risks profile
in order for them to determine the companys levels of IT risk tolerance and IT risk policies, and
oversee management in the design, implementation and monitoring of the risk management and
internal controls system.
Overall Cloud computing, offers significant computing capability and economy of scale that
might not otherwise be affordable, particularly for small and medium-sized organizations.